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BLADE: THE SERIES

...fully clad in heavy black leather, packing heat and all the ammo he needs to get the job done...Sexy and charismatic, ruthless and tough, Sticky Fingaz takes no prisoners...

You wanted a Black superhero?Â Now youâ€™ve got one!Â Kirk â€œStickyâ€? Jones â€“ we all know him as Sticky Fingaz â€“ the front man from the legendary hip hop group, Onyx.Â Sticky has taken the lead role in Blade: The Series -- Marvelâ€™s immortal half-man, half-vampire who uses his superhuman powers, deadly weapons and martial arts skills to fearlessly battle the demonic creatures of the night in a blood-dripping crusade to prevent them from sucking the life out of us all.

Sticky easily merged into the acting world in such high profile films as Clockers, Dead Presidents, In Too Deep, Next Friday, Flight of the Phoenix and the upcoming Lionâ€™s Gate film, House of the Dead 2: Dead Aim.Â Sticky has just completed his first feature film, A Day In The Life, which he wrote, directed, executive produced and stars in with such stars as Omar Epps, Faizon Love, Vivica A. Fox, Cedric the Entertainer, Fredro Starr and many others.

Blade: The Series, Spike TVâ€™s first original scripted action-adventure/drama, premiered on June 28.Â Itâ€™s the story of a half-breed vampire, conceived by a beautiful young woman who was bitten and left for dead by a train of ruthless vampires.Â As a boy he aged normally but his existence is that of the undead with powers beyond human comprehension -- a vampire who has all the strength of the kindred night creatures he relentlessly vanquishes, but none of their weaknesses except their thirst for blood.Â The sexy, hypnotic and overpowering, BLADE forms an alliance with the beautiful and fierce Krista Starr, masterfully played by Jill Wagner, a gutsy, tenacious, sensual woman who wants revenge upon the vampires for slaying her twin brother.

Sticky commands the role of Blade, straddling his wicked Harley-Davidson VRSCD Night Rod Motorcycle, fully clad in heavy black leather, packing heat and all the ammo he needs to get the job done.Â Sexy, charismatic, ruthless and tough, Sticky Fingaz takes no prisoners on his seek and destroy mission to end the carnage unleashed on mankind by the ravenous monsters of the night.Â Interestingly, although he is more powerful than his blood sucking adversaries, his one weakness seems to be that he has a heart, which causes him to continually get his butt kicked.Â But thatâ€™s okay, because it gives the ladies another reason to want to make it all better for him.

Blade: The Series is full of all the elements of a megahit: action, lust, love and plenty of blood and gore.Â Â The showÂ will keep you on the edge with its unpredictable and shocking assortment of action filled scenarios and chilling events.Â Blade: The Series is definitely not for wooses, but there's plenty ofÂ eye candy for everybody.Â

Thereâ€™s Neil Jackson who masters the role of Marcus Van Sciver, Bladeâ€™s handsome, polished, smooth, aristocratic nemesis -- aÂ vampire who blends well into society as a wealthy developer and a pillar of the community. Marcus easily moves among the city's elite, but his real power stems from his ties to the kingdom of venerable vampire rulers which he heads up.

Shen, skillfully played by Nelson Lee is Blade's loyal ally and confidant. Shen, works to perfect new technologies and specialized weaponry for Blade to use in his battles against vampires.Â

Chase, played by Jessica Gower is a gorgeous, sultry blonde vampire will make the guys fear her and want her in the same breath. Chase is Marcus's most lethal lieutenant.

All these hotties in their role, overpowering you with any combination of love, hate, lust, joy, shock and, well, the burning desire to just get up and kick somebodyâ€™s natural behind.

I arrived early for my lunch engagement with Sticky and Debra Fazio of Spike TV at the elegant Royalton Hotel in Manhattan.Â I had never met Sticky before and my imagination was running wild with what to expect him to be like.Â

Sticky turned out to be a cool, regular Brutha with a brilliant sense of humor and the charm of a prince.Â His smooth brown skin had a subtle glow that was almost mystic.Â He was dressed comfortably, yet tastefully, in a way that appeared as though he was trying to tone down or conceal his boldly chiseled frame, which only made him more visible.Â The entire interview was euphoric as Sticky purred his experiences and philosophies like a satisfied lion thatâ€™s going to be hungry again very soon.Â He has a great story -- a story of pure ambition.

BSN: Please tell me about your childhood.Â Who is young Kirk Jones?

SF:Â Thatâ€™s a general question.Â What do you mean?

BSN: Well, as evidenced by your music, you werenâ€™t exactly a â€œCosby Kidâ€?.

SF:Â I was real curious and mischievous.Â I lived a single parent home life, which consisted of my mother, my little sister and myself and then later on we had a new addition, my little brother.

BSN: I understand that you left home at a very young age.

SF:Â I left home like 15.Â My mother gave me an ultimatum.Â She said, â€œIf youâ€™re gonna live in my house, youâ€™ve gotta live by my rules.â€?Â So I thought to myself, â€œThatâ€™s not rocket science, Iâ€™ll just get my own place.â€?Â And I did.Â I moved out.

BSN: How did you get your own place so young?Â How did you get money?

SF:Â I was working at a barber shop.Â I was cutting hair and I was making at least like $800 to $1,000 a week.

BSN:Â So you were an entrepreneur since childhood?

SF:Â Yes.Â I did go back years later and buy my Mom a house â€“ even before I bought myself a house.Â So, itâ€™s not like I left her stranded.

BSN:Â Wait!Â You bought your Mom a house before you bought yourself a house?

SF:Â Â Isnâ€™t that what youâ€™re supposed to do?

BSN:Â Iâ€™m blown away.Â Letâ€™s talk a little about Black Trash:Â The Autobiography of Kirk Jones.Â Is that really who you are?

SF:Â Yeah.Â Thatâ€™s some of my creative output.Â

BSN:Â In Blade: The Series do you do your own stunts?Â How much of your own stunts do you do?

SF:Â I do at least like 85 to 90% of them.Â Some stuff they wonâ€™t let me do because of insurance reasons.Â But I try to do as much as possible.Â Because there are people who are somewhat anal about DVDs like I am, theyâ€™ll pause it and go real slow to see if itâ€™s a stuntman or not.Â I know thatâ€™s what I do.Â See, I donâ€™t want people to be disappointed so I try to do as much of my own stunts as possible.

BSN: Do you have any martial arts training?

SF:Â I train a lot now in light of [Blade]: The Series.Â Before [Blade]: The Series, I had a lot of boxing training, which is the foundation of all fighting styles.Â Now, I train in kickboxing, Wing Chung, trapping hands, wire training, sword work training, everything -- and thatâ€™s not including the gym.Â Iâ€™ve gotta stay in the gym working out.Â One thing they made me do before the kickboxing training is, they stretched me for like an hour and a half.Â Iâ€™ve never stretched that long in my life. But itâ€™s good.Â It gives you a good stretch so you donâ€™t injure yourself doing these high kicks.

BSN:Â Now that youâ€™ve taken on the role of Blade, were you influenced by Wesley Snipes in any way?

SF:Â No. Iâ€™ve watched him before Blade: The Series even came to life.Â Once I got [Blade] The Series, I even went back to watch him, but I watched him more or less to see what not to do.Â I didnâ€™t want to copy.Â My Moms always told me if youâ€™re gonna do something, always do it 100 percent, man.Â Even if youâ€™re gonna be a bum, be 100 percent bum so when people walk by they be like damn!Â Look at that bum!Â So I was like 100 percent in my role.

BSN:Â Are there any actors you would like to work with?

SF:Â Denzel, Will Smith, because theyâ€™re at the top of the game.Â Iâ€™d love to work with Tom Cruise because heâ€™s at the top of the game, and people like that â€“ people on top of the game.Â Youâ€™ve got to aim for the sky.Â That way, if you miss, youâ€™ll still be among the stars.

Sticky interrupted the interview to complement me on my energy. â€œYou have good energy about yourself,â€? he exclaimed. I got all blushy. He equated good energy to that of the sun, saying, â€œLike the sun.Â When it shines, it wakes up flowers.Â Itâ€™s not doing it on purpose, the sun is just being itself.â€?Â Â I had to include that because itâ€™s all part of who he is.Â It is my goal to bring these experiences to life for you as much as possible and really get you to know the star.Â All you ladies who say all men are alike, think again.Â Stickyâ€™s eloquence and charm brings quite a unique spice to the playground.

BSN:Â Sticky, the movie, A Day In The Life, your brainchild which you wrote, directed, executive produced and star in.Â It has been described as a Shakespearean Street Hip Hop musical.Â What does that mean?Â

SF:Â Itâ€™s a movie with good English actors where all of the dialogue is in rap.Â Some call it hip hop, Shakespearean, rapsicle, but I havenâ€™t thought of the word that best describes it.Â Itâ€™s a 90 minute movie that includes 40 songs.Â Itâ€™s like A-list actors â€“ Omar Epps, Faizon Love, Treach, Mekhi Phifer, Michael Rappaport, Drena De Niro (Robertâ€™s daughter), Fredro Starr, Clarence Williams III, Bokeem Woodbine, Vivica A. Fox, Cedric the Entertainer, and the list goes on.Â Itâ€™s the type of the movie that you can watch as a regular movie or you can just listen to the songs.

BSN:Â How did you come up with all those songs?

SF:Â Â What happened was, it was time for me to record another album.. I have a studio at home.Â I was sitting in the studio.Â Iâ€™m glad the studioâ€™s at home so you can be real comfortable in there, and Iâ€™m starting to writing a song, and Iâ€™m like, â€œDamn, what am I going to write about?â€?Â Iâ€™m looking at BET but the sound is not playing â€“ just the images.Â I thought to myself, â€œI donâ€™t want to be like just every other rapper out there talkinâ€™ bout, â€œYo, Iâ€™ll kill you, Iâ€™m gettingâ€™ b______s, Iâ€™m gettinâ€™ money, Iâ€™m gettinâ€™ diamonds,â€?Â Iâ€™m like, â€œBeen there, done that since I was like 16.Â Itâ€™s gotta be something different.â€?Â

So I said, â€œOkay, Iâ€™m gonna write a story.â€?Â Then I thought, â€œInstead of writing a story where I was telling a story, Iâ€™m gonna write the story where two people are talking to each other.â€?Â Then, I thought, â€œDamn â€“ it would be crazy if I filmed it.â€?Â Then it would be like a real scene.Â I thought, â€œIt would be crazy if I had like 40 more of these and had a 90 minute movie.â€?Â Then I did it.Â And since itâ€™s like a song format, I didnâ€™t have a script until it was done.Â

But the whole script was in my head.Â I knew where I wanted to go, I knew the characters, I knew the storyline, the format, the conflict and the resolution.Â Everybody was like, â€œYo, Sticky!Â What are you doing?â€?Â And I was like, â€œTrust me!Â I got it!Â I got it!Â I got it!â€?Â It was a whole progression.Â Once I got like 30 minutes edited, I took it to Lions Gate and they gave me finishing funds for it.Â So, it was a long process.Â It took like a year and a half to do the entire movie, and itâ€™s still not done.Â

The filming is done but itâ€™s in post production.Â Weâ€™ve got a lot of logo issues.Â I was shooting and not worrying about the logos in the background.Â Now, Lions Gate is like, â€œWe canâ€™t put the movie out with this logo or that logoâ€? â€“ like 100 logos.Â

So my assistant, Keith Brown, started getting logo clearances.Â He got at least about 80 percent of them cleared.Â So now, the CGI, which they paint over logos frame by frame, which is a very expensive process is now much lower.Â First they were charging me like $150,000 which would come directly out of the money that they owe me and now, itâ€™s down to like $40,000.Â Big difference.Â So to anybody who aspires to make movies, watch those logos.Â Donâ€™t get logos that you do not have clearances for.

We had a lot of major league baseball logos, they wonâ€™t clear for anything.Â Theyâ€™re the hardest people on the planet to get cleared.

BSN:Â Sticky, you started out in the rap game.Â How did you learn about acting and film making and all?

SF:Â Iâ€™ve been â€œactingâ€? since 1994.Â I started out young.Â My Moms moved us to Atlanta for a year and then we moved back to New York.Â When I got back to New York, my cousin, Fredro, who is also in the group Onyx, and starred on Moesha and Sunset Park and Strapped and a lot of other stuff, Fredro was cutting hair in a barber shop with his homeboy, Water.Â They were makinâ€™ mad money.Â He had a car and everything!Â I was like, â€œDamn!Â I wanna cut hair, too!â€?Â So I took his book with all his haircuts and I went to Brooklyn and told the owner of the shop that I did all the haircuts.Â I had never cut hair a day in my life.Â But the guy gave me a job based on Fredroâ€™s haircuts.Â Then, I was like, â€œGot no clippers, eitherâ€?.

Iâ€™m surprised he didnâ€™t see through the whole thing, but he didnâ€™t even question me.Â He bought me clippers and I never messed anybodyâ€™s hair up.Â I was just a natural at it.Â Plus Iâ€™m an artist.Â Once I learned the basics, I started getting really incredible at it.Â So I moved to the barber shop Fredro and them were working at because they were making mad money like $800 to $1,000 a week at 15 and still in high school.Â You know?Â So itâ€™s the same philosophy.Â How I learned how to shoot movies is the same thing.Â If you get haircuts all your life, you should know how to do â€˜em.Â If you eat a McDonaldâ€™s burger all your life, you should know how itâ€™s made.Â You know what I mean?Â So, doing movies all my life, so I picked it up like a sponge.

BSN:Â So, youâ€™re an artist?Â

SF:Â Yeah.Â I went to art school, too.Â I went to Art & Design and Graphic Communication and Arts in New York City.

DEBRA FAZIO:Â Heâ€™s also got a photographic memory. Sticky can just look at a script and know it.

BSN:Â Really!

SF:Â Well, itâ€™s like your brain is a muscle.Â If you donâ€™t work it out, then you wonâ€™t have it.Â Youâ€™ve got to work it out.Â You just take a picture with your mind and see how long you can hold the image.Â Thatâ€™s a trick in life.Â Thatâ€™s how you manifest things.Â Letâ€™s say you want a $100 bill.Â You have to think about that $100 bill in your minds eye and hold that image for as long as possible until you get it.Â Eventually, it will come.Â Youâ€™ll be walking down the block and thereâ€™ll be $100 bill right on the floor.Â Youâ€™ll pick it up and be like, â€œExactly!â€?Â

BSN:Â Thatâ€™s for magicians.Â Donâ€™t you manifest things by hard work?Â How can you just think of something you want and get it?

SF:Â It has nothing to do with magic. This table weâ€™re sitting at right now?Â It was once a thought at first.Â The chair youâ€™re sitting on.Â It was first a thought.Â A car, an airplane, a computer, the internet.Â They thought about it and then they made it.Â So, if you control your thoughts, not only do you control your world, but you control the world around you.

BSN:Â Letâ€™s talk about the Onyx reunion album.Â Is it going be classic Onyx or are you going to become more mainstream with this album?

SF:Â Itâ€™s gonna be both.Â Weâ€™re going to try something we sort of tried before but weâ€™re gonna try it to the tenth power now.Â Onyx is a stone.Â Itâ€™s a black rock. So the name of the album is gonna be called the Black Rock and itâ€™s gonna be rock n roll and hip hop.Â See what we did with Biohazard back in the days with the Slam remix?Â Weâ€™re gonna make a whole album full of that with a hip-hop spin on it.Â Because you know we want the young street kids from like Brooklyn and Harlem to feel it, not just the head bangers, you know what I mean?

Fredro is also working on an identical project.Â Iâ€™m working on it with him but Iâ€™m just executive producing it.Â Itâ€™s called Young Onyx.Â Itâ€™s basically, the sons of our friends who grew up with us.Â We picked the wildest of the sons of our friends from back in the day that can rap and keep it street. Then he formed this group called Young Onyx.Â I think the oldest guy is like 18.

BSN:Â How do you feel about the direction rap music is taking on today â€“ especially Southern rap and these more contemporary styles?

SF:Â I mean, Iâ€™m a East Coast dude from the heart, so I canâ€™t really get into all the country crunk bammer, but to each his own. You know?Â And if itâ€™s a way for young Bruthas to make some money and get out of the hood, to each his own.Â Iâ€™m all for it.Â But rap moves around.Â It started in the East, then the West took over for a second, then Texas had their little sayso, now itâ€™s in the Dirty South, itâ€™s gonna come back to New York eventually.Â I just want people to be more creative.Â I think when A Day In The Life drops, the movie â€“ itâ€™s going to force people to be more creative.

BSN:Â Youâ€™ve had that entrepreneurial mindset from childhood.Â Where did you get that spirit?

SF:Â It all started when I wanted this certain pair of Nikes that cost $120.Â My Mom said, â€œIâ€™m not paying over $100 for no sneakers! Hereâ€™s a nice pair for $40.â€?Â So I said, â€œWhy donâ€™t you give me the $40 and Iâ€™ll get the other $80 and Iâ€™ll get the sneakers I want.â€?Â And I did that.Â Â Â I started a newspaper route, I did whatever I had to do.Â I went to C-town Supermarket and packed bags, I helped old ladies carry their bags home.Â It took me two weeks, but I got the money, and I got the sneakers.Â Â If you want it, you gotta go get it.Â Otherwise, you ainâ€™t gonâ€™ get it!Â Period!

Thatâ€™s why the name of my company is Major Intependents.Â Weâ€™re doing things independently but in a major way.Â (MI)

BSN:Â How did Onyx come about?

Onyx existed before I was in the group.Â It was Fredro, Soncee and Big DS.Â They had a record deal with Profile records and they had a single but Profile wasnâ€™tâ€™ really feelinâ€™ them and they werenâ€™t really feelinâ€™ Profile.Â So they got a release from Profile and they started shopping other places.Â One person they shopped to was Jam Master Jay from Run DMC.Â Heâ€™s passed his way now, rest his soul.Â He loved their stuff but he wanted to hear more.Â

Simultaneously, two of the guys from the group, Soncee and Big DS got stranded in Connecticut.Â So their manager at the time, Jeff Harris, was like, â€œFredro, you and your cousin, Sticky â€“ go in the studio and make something.Â We canâ€™t lose this deal.Â We gotta get Jay!â€?Â So Fredro and I went in the studio and made some songs and they were hot.Â He gave them to Jay and he loved them.Â So when it came time to sign the group, it was just those three there.Â I was just doing them a favor because the other guys were missing.Â Jay was like, â€œWait a minute â€“ whereâ€™s the guy with the deep voice?Â Iâ€™m not signinâ€™ yâ€™all without him!â€?Â And thatâ€™s how I got â€œabductedâ€? into Onyx.Â

Jam Master Jay, I miss him.Â He was like a big brother, mentor, he brought us into light.Â When he passed, I didnâ€™t want to believe it.Â Iâ€™ve still got his number inside my phone.

BSN:Â Is there a special lady?

SF:Â Iâ€™m a free spirit.Â I am seeing somebody right now, but Iâ€™m not married.Â You know what I mean?Â

BSN:Â Why did you take the â€œFingazâ€? out of Sticky?

SF:Â I didnâ€™t.Â My agent and my manager did but I think that they were wrong in doing that because Iâ€™ve been building that name for 14 years and it will be put back on.Â Itâ€™s going to start saying, Kirk Sticky Fingaz Jones.

BSN:Â Why are you called â€œSticky Fingazâ€??

SF:Â Because everything I touch I take.

Blade: The Series can be seen on Spike TV every Wednesday night at 10:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Brenda Jeanne Wyche is Managing Editor of The Black Star News and Harlem Business News and CEO of Winning Strategies & Associates, LLC â€“ a Small Business Consultancy in New York City

To subscribe to or advertise in New Yorkâ€™s leading Pan African weekly investigative newspaper, please call (212) 481-7745 or send a note to Milton@blackstarnews.comÂ .Â Maybe we'll talk.